Chandler murderers mute at sentencing

Press Photo/Mark CopierJames and Glenna Chandler, seated second and third from right, watch the sentencing of four men convicted of killing their daughter,Janet Chandler. Anthony William, one of the four sentenced, confers with his attorneys.

GRAND HAVEN -- The last four defendants in the 1979 slaying of Hope College student Janet Chandler were sentenced this afternoon to mandatory terms of life in prison without parole.

None of the defendants, standing only feet from Chandler's tearful parents, had anything to say before sentencing

Afterward, Glenna and James Chandler said they were not surprised that the defendants failed to show any remorse.

Press Photo/Mark CopierJames and Glenna Chandler talk to the media after the sentencing at Grand Haven Circuit Court.

"You'd have thought -- well, what can they say," the father said. "They all say they weren't there, and they're innocent. As a Christian, I just say we should probably forgive. However, you have to ask for forgiveness, and none of these arrogant people showed remorse, much less asked for forgiveness."

They were Wackenhut security guards, in Holland to protect the striking Chemetron Corp. plant. Workers described the guards as thugs. They stayed at the former Blue Mill Inn in Holland, where Chandler, a Hope College student, worked.

Janet Chandler was kidnapped and taken to a guest house where a Wackenhut boss stayed, where she was repeatedly raped, tortured, then finally died after being strangled with a belt.

Her body was dumped on a snowy median of Int. 196 near South Haven.

Soon after Chandler went missing, a Wackenhut guard told Holland police that he was talking to her on the telephone when she reported she was being robbed.

Police considered then that she could have been robbed and kidnapped.

Robert Lynch, 78, of Three Oaks in southwest Michigan, who held the belt when Chandler died, was the first arrested in the case. He pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and is serving 25 to 50 years in prison. Laurie Swank, 50, Chandler's former boss and roommate who was arrested in Nescopeck, Pa., where she worked as a nurse, was sentenced to 10 to 20 years for second-degree murder.

She cooperated with prosecutors, and testified for the prosecution.

The cold case has drawn national attention, with NBC's "Dateline" -- in court Monday -- expects to air a segment early next year. The case gained attention when Hope College professor David Schock and his students produced a documentary, "Who killed Janet Chandler."

A four-man cold-case team of Holland police and state police investigators traveled the nation to track down witnesses and suspects. In some cases, police made numerous out-of-state trips for re-interviews before they cracked the case, marked by extreme brutality and a 27-year code of silence among defendants as well as witnesses.